by Erik Hyrkas
Chapter 8. Max
I looked for the trap Miranda had stepped in. I couldn’t see the device even though I knew right where it was. I realized that I stood in the middle of a potential minefield and had no way to navigate it. I picked up a fallen tree branch and poked the ground in front of me with each step, walking around the perimeter of the area where I had last heard Tyler. I found nothing.
If something had taken our partner, it didn’t leave footprints or drag marks. I didn’t see any traces of blood or even a bent twig that might give me some clue. I wasn’t trained in field tracking, but I had investigative skills and there should have been some hint of what happened. Tyler had just disappeared. I didn’t want to give up on him, but without any evidence to go on, I had to worry about my remaining partner, and she was with this guy John who was at least half something-other-than-human. I never liked Tyler, but I felt awful giving up the search, partly because I knew this would go on my record and partly because I didn’t really want him dead.
I walked through the woods in the direction John had indicated. Eventually I found a cottage in the woods. Chickens clucked and strutted in the yard, and then I saw a goat, which bleated as I passed. Other than having creepy goat eyes, I didn’t really see anything to be worried about.
The building appeared to be a one-bedroom home with shingles that needed to be replaced. The blinds were closed on all the windows so I couldn’t see in. White paint peeled off the trim in places, and the stairs on the porch were worn wood that had turned gray. A broken-down shed lurked in the trees.
The front door was unlocked, and so I walked in. Miranda sat on a blue La-Z-Boy inside the small, comfortable living room. I didn’t see the sheriff.
“Did you find him?” Miranda asked.
I shook my head. “Not a trace.”
I looked around the room. The sheriff didn’t have a television or even a radio. There was a small table with a number of books on it in front of the recliner. As I stepped toward Miranda, the sheriff walked into the room with some bandages and splints.
“I searched the immediate area and didn’t find anything,” I said.
Miranda frowned. “What do we do?”
“The first thing we’re going to do is get your leg fixed.” My stomach growled loudly.
John looked at me. "I’ll take care of her. There's food in the kitchen. Help yourself."
I decided Miranda looked like she was in capable hands, and if John was a danger it seemed unlikely he would be giving her first-aid—and I was hungry. "Thanks, Sheriff."
I entered the door he had indicated. I could hear them in the living room while I looked for food. Something was cooking on the stove, but it smelled disgusting. I looked in the fridge, where I found an assortment of food I didn’t recognize and wasn’t brave enough to try. Then I saw a basket of fruit on the kitchen table. I grabbed a bright red, shiny apple.
Well, it looked like the apple, but after biting into it, I realized it tasted like a habanero pepper. My eyes started to water as I chewed, and I felt my throat constrict.
In the other room, I heard Miranda gasp. "Oh, my!"
John snorted. "Don't be scared. It's just my cock."
I started to choke, partly on the apple that was really a pepper and partly on what I just heard.
"That's the biggest one I've ever seen," Miranda said.
I fell to my knees, trying to dislodge the fruit. I was now just choking on the fruit.
"Go ahead. You can touch it," John said.
I hit myself in the chest. After dozens of intense missions, including one that involved wrestling with a one-ton Tiikera cat, I was going to die right here, the victim of a piece of fruit.
Miranda cleared her throat. "It feels nice. It's bumpier than I expected."
I fell to my side. I needed air now.
"That's normal. Get ready for it," John said.
I crawled toward the living room.
"Do it quick, before I change my mind," she said. There was a moment of silence, and then she let out a long moan.
I heaved with all my might and the fruit dislodged itself from my throat and landed in the pot on the stove. I crawled the remaining few feet to the door and peered out into the living room from the floor.
Miranda had a massive rooster on her lap. John was splinting her leg.
"You do have a giant cock," I whispered.
"Thanks. It's a rooster crossbred with a Teraskian fire hawk. They spit a corrosive that makes your skin burn so bad you’d wish you had died.”
Miranda went stalk still.
I cleared my throat. "Hot."
"Very." He offered me a hand up. I took it.
“Sheriff, can you take your bird off of me?” Miranda asked. John swatted the bird away, and it hissed at him. “Thanks. Do you know what took our friend?” Miranda asked.
I thought the f-word was a completely inappropriate descriptor.
“There have been a lot of folks disappearing lately, but he’s the first outworlder to disappear.” John glanced out the window. “He’s also the first person to go missing in the daytime.”
“There have been others?” Miranda asked.
“A few tourists and a local fishing guide. Nothing serious,” he said.
“Nothing serious? Aren’t you the sheriff in this town?” I asked.
“County. I’m the county sheriff, and technically this isn’t my county. I only live here. I’m a St. Louis County Sheriff, not the Lake County Sheriff.”
“Okay, but what’s eating people?” I asked.
“We don’t know they’re being eaten,” Miranda said. “All we know is they’re being taken.”
I didn’t want to point out that the sheriff had found bits and pieces of people.
John scratched the stubble on his chin. “I’d guess it was something big.”
“So,” I said, trying to control my voice. “We’re looking for something big.”
He shrugged. “You shouldn’t be looking for anything. You would do best to get out of here.”
Miranda showed her badge. “We’re agents for the Service and the man that disappeared was also an agent.”
“Three agents. That’s odd,” he said under his breath.
I cleared my throat. “Is there any other information you can give us that might help our investigation?”
“Sure.” He walked toward the kitchen. “You need bigger guns.”
I frowned. “Well, I’m not really into guns…”
Miranda looked surprised. “You don’t have a gun?”
“Guns kill things,” I said.
“And if you have lots of guns, you can kill lots of things,” John added.
“Well, you know martial arts at least, right?” Miranda asked.
I grinned. “Sure, I’ve seen plenty of Jackie Chan movies. He’s so awesome!”
Miranda whispered something to herself that I couldn’t hear. She might have said something like ship, but I couldn’t tell. She stood unsteadily, testing her bandaged leg. “Well, we can’t sit here all cozy and comfy while Tyler is being eaten.”
“Well, when you put it like that...” I looked for a place to recline.
“Come on, Chuck Norris,” she said.
“He prefers to be called sheriff,” I pointed out.
She coughed. “Max, you and I are leaving. The sheriff has his own worries.”
“You can barely walk,” I said.
“I think it’s a fracture, and you probably shouldn’t walk on it until you have it properly looked at,” John said.
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Bruce Lee and I have business to take care of.”
“Are you sure? You know that I can fix that, right?” I asked.
She looked at me. “You can fix my broken leg?”
“Sure. You know how I am able to heal really fast?”
She looked cautiously at me. “Yes.”
“Well, I can heal other people, too.”
She started to take another step tow
ard the door, winced, and turned around. She hobbled back to the recliner. “Fine. This is your one and only chance to play doctor. Make it count.”
I pulled the emergency knife out of my boot.
She looked like she might change her mind. “What are you going to do with that?”
I stabbed myself in the forearm, sinking the knife to the hilt. I inhaled to manage my pain. When I pulled the blade out, it was covered with my blood. The wound healed as I watched.
Miranda looked a little pale. “I am not going to drink that.”
“Gross,” I said.
I quickly flipped the blade in my hand and stabbed her in her broken shin. There was a small explosion behind my eyes and the world rocked. I lost track of my surroundings for a moment then, and when I opened my eyes, I was lying on a broken table. The room was empty and I realized that Miranda had managed to knock me out cold. No flirting this time like when she hit me before. From my vantage point on the floor, I could see feet at the kitchen table in the next room.
“This is delicious,” I heard Miranda say. “What’s in it?”
“It’s a family recipe, but I have to say, it actually tastes a little different than usual,” John answered. “Slightly spicier.”
Probably the evil apple I spit into it, I thought. I found my knife lodged three inches into my thigh. I took it out, cleaned it off, and returned it to my boot. My thigh burned as it healed. I closed my eyes momentarily as the pain flared and then subsided.
I walked into the kitchen. “Sorry that I went to sleep on the job.”
“No problem,” she said, and I saw her smile return. “You should try John’s stew!”
“I’m really not that hungry, thanks.”
She took another big bite. “Your loss.”
“I thought you were worried about Tyler being eaten.”
She shoveled in a few more bites. “I’m so hungry.”
“That’d be the hormones from my blood kicking in,” I murmured. I cleared my throat. “You might notice some changes in your behavior for the next day or two, but probably not longer than that.”
“I feel great!” Then she seemed to really notice me. “You know, you’re kind of hot.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry; you’ll be back to normal in no time.”
A beeping sound emitted from John’s pocket. The sheriff stood and pulled out a device that resembled a universal remote. “Well, whatever the creature is, I’ve got it!” He pressed a button on the remote and the beeping stopped.
“What happened?” I asked.
“One of my traps was set off,” John said. “I put a few of them down in different places where I suspected it’s been moving.”
“How far away is the trap?” Miranda asked between bites.
He glanced at the readout on his remote. “A few miles away,” John replied. “We’ll actually be crossing back into my jurisdiction to check this trap.” He marched toward the door and I followed.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked back to Miranda.
She sighed, pulled out the Power Protein drink I had given her earlier, and downed it in one swallow. “All right, let’s go.” She stood up on her good-as-new leg.
I missed my calling. I would have made an awesome doctor.
I noticed that she had turned her pants into shorts with a knife, probably to hide the blood stains from the trap. I looked down at my pants and observed the bloodstained hole in my own pants. When I returned to my room, these were going in the drawer of fame.
“You’re staring at him and drooling a little,” John whispered to Miranda.
She wiped the corner of her mouth and then winked at me. I liked her better before she had my hormones. She was going to be so upset with me if she grew chest hair.
We followed John outside, past the fire chickens and the goat, and into the dense underbrush. Once in the forest, his tan uniform wasn’t always easy to follow, even with the backdrop of mostly greens and blacks. We followed the sounds of his footsteps, occasionally catching a glimpse of movement. But when he came to a stop somewhere ahead of us, Miranda and I almost completely lost him. Thankfully, Miranda’s acute senses led us to where he stood rooted.
On the ground lay a bloody weapon that both Miranda and I recognized immediately, the fully automatic assault weapon that the guy who gave us our room key at the resort had been cleaning. Then I realized that there was more to the scene, a hand still gripping the gun and an arm that was not attached to a body. Then I saw what was in the trap that the sheriff had set—a man’s leg from the thigh down.
Then a thought occurred to me. “Does that mean our resort stay is free?”
Miranda nudged me in the ribs. “You know that you can expense it to the Service, right?” she whispered.
“Oh yeah,” I whispered back. I wish I’d kept all those receipts from the mission on Virrean. “Why are we whispering?”
“Because he’s dead,” she said pointing at the limbs.
“He can’t hear us,” I whispered. I indicated the limbs. “His ears aren’t even here.”
Her voice resumed normal volume. “I suppose it’s possible he survived.”
“No,” said John. “It’s not. If you look at the flesh here and here…” He pointed to two different spots on what remained of our desk clerk. “You’ll notice something odd.”
“What?” I asked.
“Teeth marks. Giant teeth. This man was eaten alive, starting from the other side of his body. These are the bits left over.”
“Well, we know one thing for certain,” I said.
“What?” Miranda asked.
“Whatever we’re up against didn’t finish dinner and so it doesn’t get dessert.”
Miranda nodded. “Well, it better not get dessert because we’re the closest food.” She looked at me with a lascivious grin. “Especially with a treat like you here.”
“You’re still drooling,” John whispered to her.
“We also know that we didn’t see any bits of Tyler left over,” I said. “So maybe Tyler wasn’t eaten.”
“Was there any blood when you checked the perimeter of the area where you last heard him?” the sheriff asked.
“Not that I could find,” I said.
John knelt. “Look at this.” He pointed to some yellow-green goo on the ground.
“Yeah, you’re right. Somebody really hocked a giant loogie.”
John shook his head. “It isn’t phlegm. It’s blood. It looks like this guy got off a few shots before becoming dinner. I don’t see a blood trail leading away, though.”
“If it can bleed, that means we can kill it,” I replied.
Miranda frowned. “To leave teeth marks this large means this creature is huge. I don’t see how you could kill anything let alone a monstrous eater-of-people. You don’t even have a gun.”
“The lack of blood trail suggests it had a way of staunching the bleeding,” the sheriff said. “There’s a chance it has regenerative abilities.”
Miranda sighed. “We don’t have any definitive evidence this creature can heal. It may simply have been carrying around Band-Aids. We only know that it is large, has teeth, and likes to eat humans. We also don’t know what technologies it has.”
John nodded. “I agree. We need more information.” He scanned the ground further. “But we don’t have any sort of trail to follow.”
“Just because I heal fast doesn’t mean I can’t be killed. I can drown, or if I sustain a large enough injury…” I pointed at the unfortunate innkeeper. “I’m not invincible.”
John smirked. “Yes, but you are tough to kill. If you weren’t so resilient, your species couldn’t have survived the conditions of your planet with such low intellect.”
“Well, yeah, I guess I am pretty tough,” I said.
“I wonder who is going to take care of his cat.” Miranda asked.
“What cat?” I asked.
“Remember that cat back at the resort? It was orange. Poor thing,” she said.
<
br /> “It’s a cat. They can take care of themselves,” John said.
“Let’s worry about finding Tyler,” I suggested.
Miranda put her hands on her hips. “I remember Wendy saying the ping originated near, or was possibly coming from, a mineshaft. Do you know of an old mineshaft near here?”
John shook his head. “There is no mineshaft near here.”
“It would be underwater,” I said.
John considered. “Well, there’s an old strip mine filled with water about a mile that way, but strip mines are not mineshafts. They’re giant pits in the ground. This one filled up with water after all the iron was scraped out. The locals call it Miner’s Lake now. They even stock it with fish.”
“We should give Wendy an update,” Miranda said.
“Why should we do that?” I asked.
“Chapter 12, section 4.2 of the Agent Handbook states that an agent shall remain in constant…”
“Fine. Fine. May I borrow your com link?”
She looked surprised. “You don’t have your com link?”
“They’re so fragile. Mine was broken a few missions ago, and I keep forgetting to get a new one.”
“A few missions ago?”
“Giant beavers. You should have seen the size of their…”
“Here’s my com link,” she said as she extended it to me, but when I went to take it, she didn’t let go right away. Then she sighed and released her grip.
I hit a few buttons on the com link and a hologram of Wendy’s face appeared.
“Hello, Maxie,” she said. “Miranda called a little bit ago. She must have forgotten to tell me something."
From behind Wendy’s hologram, Miranda mouthed, “Maxie?”
“We’ve found evidence of a ping, but I have some bad news,” I said.
Her face took on a pouty look. “Poor Max. If you lost Miranda, I wouldn’t worry too much about her. We can get you a new partner.”
“So far, I’ve only lost Tyler. No, the bad news is we don’t know what we are up against. But speaking of Tyler, do you know why he snuck on our plane? Why didn’t he simply get on with us?”
She frowned. “You know he has a penchant for the dramatic.”
I shrugged. “Well, it struck me as kind of odd. You’re sure he was cleared for this mission?”
“Yes, and you better find him in one piece. Life might get difficult for you if you don’t. I’ll keep your blunder under wraps as long as I can, but I can’t promise Captain Johnson won’t find out. I’ll bet he’ll throw you in the stockade for this one.”
I groaned. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Find him quickly.” Her face disappeared and the com link’s hologram faded to nothing.
“She’s lying,” I said. “I’m sure that Tyler wasn’t part of this mission. Wendy must be trying to cover for him.”
Miranda looked at me. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I confronted Tyler last night, and he told me he needed this mission so he wasn’t forced into retirement. He’s helped me before, and so I was returning the favor. I didn’t know he and Wendy were friends, or maybe she owes him a favor or something. I only wish she had more information for us.” I handed Miranda the com link.
Miranda frowned. “Poor guy.”